Dreams Are Made Of This

Submitted by Abu Nuwas (Netherlands), Feb 25, 2009 at 23:38

Those of us Westerners who have lived in the Gulf area for years (30 in my case), all along saw the whole "Gulf Wealth Explosion" as a complete myth. We foresaw what was coming since it began.

You can't just "build Malls", have a national airline and expect that that's all there is to "becoming modern".

That is, you can't have the "product without the culture", something that the Arabs have been trying to do unsuccessfully for decades. Yes, we want the proceeds from your culture, they said, but of course, we don't want your ACTUAL culture at the same time.

Sorry, it doesn't work that way. Briefly, you can't have a spanking modern Mall while down the block an enraged father performs a "mercy killing" with no one even noticing it.

I've said all along: there is no such thing as "modern Islamic civilization": what you have today is a remnant of a civilization that died centuries ago.

The entire Middle East is a vast swamp-land populated largely by peasants that have a peasant culture. Just look at any picture from the Middle East and look closely at the people......they're all dressed like impovrished gypsies with little cognizance of the outside world, living in pathetic hovels that remind one of an 8th century village somewhere in Europe.

The "new generation" is all hot air too. Modernism to them is trying to look like Michael Jackson (and what's worse, talking like him).

Any Middle Easterner that has something going for him looks to the West, both for himself and his children. They are all desperately trying to get out of the swampland of Arabia Felix (an oxymoron if I ever heard one).

Bonne chance.....They need it.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".